Meet one of my athletes…

Being new to triathlon, I was ambitious in wanting to complete an Ironman but was clueless on how to go about doing it. On hindsight, engaging Linda to coach me was probably the best decision.

Linda has a vast experience in triathlon coaching and she was quick to profile me through her rigorous assessment form to ensure that we were setting realistic and achievable training programmes and targets. My programme was planned specifically to meet the demands of my race, which was Ironman France, Nice, that is notorious for the punishing bike segment with ascents over 2000m.

Being a poor swimmer, Linda gave me useful drills and training programmes to improve on my technique. Following her programme religiously, I saw measurable improvements in my swim times and soon gained the confidence that I was going to make the ironman swim time cut off.

In my final year of university, I had several deadlines and dissertation to submit. Linda was flexible and understanding to my academic priorities and we had several discussions on ways best to work around my schedule without compromising my academic work and training.

She is always open to training feedback and adjusted training accordingly to the feedback I gave or injuries or illness I suffered. However, she was also firm during times as she knew that I had to clock the volume of training in order to meet the race demands. After all, it was an Ironman Race.

Closing in to race day, there was an adequate taper period, I felt rested and confident in the training I’ve done throughout the winter. Linda gave me valuable race tips, with regard to administration of race, positioning of swim, transitions tricks and many more to make sure that everything would go smoothly on race day.

After 6 months of training, I completed the race in 12 hours and 46mins (with a bike crash during the bike segment), which was well within my target time. All of this would not have been possible if not for Linda’s dedicated coaching, which I am very grateful for.